Community pharmacists and their teams, as trusted healthcare professionals, are envisaged to play an important role in supporting increased uptake through promoting the national BowelScreen programme at population level. In addition, community pharmacies will enhance access by supporting individuals to register and participate in the programme. This will help to support the programme’s aim of reducing colorectal cancer mortality in the eligible age range.
There are a number of specific areas in which the BowelScreen community pharmacy intervention will assist individuals in accessing and navigating the programme:
• Opportunistic promotion regarding participation in the BowelScreen programme as part of other consultations.
• Providing the necessary clinical information to enable informed consent to be obtained for participation in the programme.
• Assisting individuals, including those in vulnerable and hard to reach groups, who have been sent an invitation letter for the screening programme, and who are clinically eligible, to register their participation and to be supplied with the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) kit.
• To check, input or amend eligible individual’s details on the BowelScreen register.
• Educating patients about the importance of bowel screening and how to use the FIT kit, including familiarity through demonstration kits where appropriate.
The HSE will provide pharmacists and their teams with training modules and educational materials to ensure readiness for implementation of this service in the coming months. The HSE will also supply appropriate information resources and promotional materials for use in pharmacies (both digital and printed).
The BowelScreen community pharmacy intervention will be rolled out in a phased basis across 2026, starting with the training and health promotion activity in the coming months.
